nbcnews – excerpt (includes video)

Rental prices are increasing by more than 30% in major cities across the U.S. with the national monthly average for a one-bedroom costing $1,701. NBC News’ Zinhle Essamuah reports on how private equity firms play a major role in fueling the rise in housing costs nationwide…(more)

The corporate buyout is old news to us, but, the national coverage makes it harder to hide the government’s role in creating the problem and avoiding any real fixes that might upset the corporate takeover of the housing market government claims to be fixing by building more housing. The game is complete when the financing comes from higher taxes.

By Will Jarrett : missionlocal – excerpt

“No contract, no peace”

Some 300 workers from the Tenderloin Housing Clinic are on strike today, demanding an increase in wages.

“No contract, no peace,” the crowd shouted outside the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Services offices along Turk Street this morning. After eight months of contract negotiations, many said they felt “pushed” to strike because of a lack of clarity around pay raises.

The Tenderloin Housing Clinic is a property management nonprofit that maintains around 2,000 affordable units throughout 24 projects in the city, mainly for formerly homeless tenants. That includes five in the Mission, including San Francisco’s largest SRO hotel, Mission Hotel. The nonprofit received over $33 million in city funding last fiscal year to provide housing for some of the city’s hardest-up denizens, and to provide services such as case management…(more)

Is it wise to encumber the Tenderloin Housing Clinic with more contracts to fill when they can’t manage their current staff? It is time to talk to the residents about the conditions in the supportive housing about how they are being supported to determine which of the many contractors is doing the best job. If service personnel are upset how well are they performing their jobs? We should ask the tenants they are charged with supporting. They know more than anyone else how well the supportive systems work.

By Andrew Chamings : sfgate – excerpt

SFGATE editor-at-large Andrew Chamings on why the Sho Club is wrong for San Francisco

San Francisco is getting its first NFT-based restaurant and private club. And it’s being built right in the middle of a public park.

A flurry of recent press releases from an entity named the Sho Group — a “global experiential hospitality platform” — revealed the details of the ostentatious Japanese-themed restaurant and private club, to be built on San Francisco’s most ostentatious public space, Salesforce Park…

The wording around the club’s recent media blitz reads like a parody of Silicon Valley’s repellent buzzwordery.

“SHO Club is a member’s only NFT-based hospitality club providing exclusive access to immersive experiences and services around its flagship restaurant, SHO,” reads the blurb.

What’s more galling than the repeated use of the terms “immersive” and “experiential” to describe an actual restaurant is the fact that, as the group’s website proudly proclaims, the astronomically expensive and exclusive eatery “is the only rooftop restaurant located on the Salesforce Transit Center’s roof.”…(more)

The PR guys are crazy to keep pitching these exclusive, expensive, reprehensively hideous projects in such as insensitive manner. The media is not sugar-coating it for them anymore. They are telling it like it is. We gag on vibrant, immersive experiential BS. Not to mention the activated sidewalks and other hyper techie speech that keep popping up in every pitch for parks that are not really parks because they lack grass and plants and trees. The are primarily poured concrete pathways. And for jolly’s they throw in some kooky tables and chairs and weed containers. The sad thing is that some people think this is good design. Pleasing to the eye. Who’s eye?

There is some idea of building a new condo on one of the piers, or in place of it that will have a bay front and inner bay pool. Clearly the architect and client are not considering low tide and just how bad that can smell. Low tide comes twice a day and the lower the lows the higher the highs.

by Susan Dyer Reynolds : marinatimes – excerpt

Attempts to end City Hall corruption are crumbling faster than San Francisco’s seawall

This is the introduction to an investigative report that will be sent to newsletter subscribers. To be the first to receive it, sign up for free here: https://susanreynolds.substack.com/

“It is clear from the context that the primary purpose of such a behested payment would have been to secure a commissioner’s support for a valuable City contract that should have been awarded through established, merit-based contracting procedures. This incident is a stark example of how behested payments can be used in a pay-to-play scheme if basic ethics rules are not in place.”

— San Francisco Ethics Commission, in its recommendation for the prohibition of behested payments, Dec. 9, 2020

The phrase “tone at the top” was first popularized in the U.S. Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which highlighted poor leadership as the primary cause of the biggest corporate failures, including Enron and WorldCom. “Painfully, these scandals exposed widespread arrogance, fraud, conflicts-of-interest, preferential treatment, and a collective failure among the gatekeepers charged with oversight and maintaining the public trust,” said management consultant Deloitte in its report, Tone at the Top: The First Ingredient in a World-Class Ethics and Compliance Program…(more)

By Joe Eskenazi : missionlocal – excerpt

Brooke Jenkins, the disgruntled former prosecutor who quit Chesa Boudin’s office to become the face of the recall, has been tabbed by Mayor London Breed to be the next District Attorney.

It is a bold and combustible move from the mayor; of the names on Breed’s list, Jenkins is surely the riskiest choice.

In Jenkins, 40, the mayor has elevated a smart, tough and outspoken prosecutor who even former legal adversaries — who were deeply disturbed by this choice — described as talented and formidable. Jenkins is both Black and Latina (but is not San Francisco’s first Black female DA; you’ll recall Vice President Kamala Harris). She is a telegenic presence who, demonstrably in her role as the recall’s figurehead, can broadly make her case to the people. In this, she’s a marked contrast from her employer-turned-target Boudin, who excelled in small or one-on-one situations, but often struggled to explain his policies and politics in the media…

Within the DA’s office, Jenkins was seen as a talented up-and-comer, but not yet one of the star attorneys. She has not served in a management role. So the replacement of a young, first-time manager with a young, first-time manager does raise questions…(more)

You get what is paid for not what your deserve when candidates run unopposed.

By Tim Redmond :48hills – excerpt

Last-minute Mandelman move seeks to allow widespread housing demolition—potentially dooming Chan’s affordable-housing measure.

The Board of Supes delayed consideration of an affordable-housing measure today after a hearing that showed how the fall campaign on this critical issue may play out.

The San Francisco Labor Council and some construction unions are siding with Sup. Connie Chan’s measure, which would give developers a valuable fast-track process for projects that are 100 percent affordable or contain a significant number of units affordable to people who make less than 120 percent of Area Median Income.

But the Yimbys, who have their own ballot measure that raises the limit of “affordability” to 140 percent of AMI, have managed to get some labor folks, including members of the Carpenters Union, to side with them.

During public comment, a number of union members said they sided with the Yimby measure and opposed Chan’s plan.

That, Chan said, showed that the Yimbys were seeking to “divide the labor movement.” Chan’s measure sets higher labor standards for affordable-housing production.

Then we saw a perhaps unexpected twist: Sup. Rafael Mandelman offered an amendment to the Chan measure that would allow for-profit developers to get fast-track approval (that is, no public hearings, no appeals) to demolish existing housing in any neighborhood and build up to nine new units…(more)

If any of this make any sense read on. It feels like whatever is contaminating Washington has hit SF City Hall. It is getting hard to figure out who is playing what game and how many sides there are now. Supervisors may deny the amendments and voters have the option of opposing all of the measures. Get ready for a lot more mail and email than you want arriving daily as they try to outspend each other.

By Ida Mojadad : sfstandard – excerpt

The payroll company linked to a fiasco that triggered over 1,000 cases of missing wages, cut benefits and tax errors for teachers earlier this year landed another $2.7 million to continue its contract with the San Francisco Unified School District.

The Board of Education OK’d the contract extension with Infosys just after midnight on Wednesday… (more)

Are these people so limited in their options that they are stuck with a loser? Did they finally get the teachers paid?

By Josh Koehn: sfstandard – excerpt (includes video)

San Francisco’s political oddsmakers began taking figurative bets Tuesday on who would become the city’s next district attorney as the Board of Supervisors certified the recent election results and the clock started on Mayor London Breed’s window to appoint a successor to Chesa Boudin…

But at least one of the mayor’s advisors and predecessors in office thinks Boudin—who told the Chronicle he might run again in November or next year—would have an excellent chance to win his job back.

“I think Chesa runs in November,” former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown told The Standard. “Of course, why wouldn’t he? … He got 45% of the (recall) vote. I would run if I’m Chesa. I know that was not a true measurement of my electability in this recall. ‘I was literally running against myself.’ Nobody else on the ballot, period.”…

“They have knocked off the school board, they have knocked off the DA’s office, there is now only one major (office) left,” Brown said. “And they won’t go after (Breed) now, on a recall, but in 18 months she’s on the ballot for re-election. So, we’ve really got our work cut out for us.”…(more)